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This is a formal study of housing types in traditional and contemporary
Beijing. The research is done largely with the aid of the computational tools.
The final product is a computer multimedia file stored in CD-ROM.
The background for this research is the rapid development in Beijing which
is being extended into the inner city area where large amount of traditional
houses still exist. The central issue of this study is the attitudes towards
'traditional' and 'new' and the comparison of them. It takes 1949 as the year
for the division of 'traditional' and 'new' as that is the years of the
establishment of the People's Republic of China. Therefore, it takes
Siheyuan which was the dominant housing type before 1949 as the
traditional type and some prototypes found in post-1949 period China under
the category of 'new' housing types.
The research mainly contains three parts. It starts with study of the
traditional courtyard house - Siheyuan, examines the historical background
which have enabled this type of house to have existed for centuries. It then
take examples in post-1949 China to analyze the new interpretations. The
political, economic and other social factors are examined for a better
understanding of these built forms. Based on the above research and
analysis, it finally comes up with conclusions of the forms and made
recommendations for the future planning/design activities.
Exploration of the potential of the computational tools comprises a large part
of the study. Exploration of multimedia tools is carried out through the
research. The final product is academic (architectural) and technical
(computational) as well.